Halloween Knitting
When I finished my first gnome back in January, my daughter and I started telling each other gnome stories. As part of these, we made up all different kinds of gnomes to live in our little make-believe forest. And because both of us are big on holidays (and LOVE Halloween!), it didn’t take long for David S. Gnomes to make it into our stories. He is based on SNL’s David Pumpkins. My daughter wanted the gnome version to have pumpkins all over him, just like David’s suit, and I knew that I already had a pattern in my library that would be perfect to add to a gnome base. So I got out the Never Not Gnoming pattern from Sarah Schira to use as a base (I used the biggest gnome from that pattern), pulled out Five Little Pumpkins, and then downloaded the ADVENTure Gnome pattern.
Using the Never Not Gnoming pattern, I added in a stripe to the hat to make it Halloween-y (also I did not want to figure out how to incorporate pumpkins on the hat portion lol). It turned out to have a lovely little wonkiness to it, which was totally accidental, but perfect. I blame it on knitting it on an overnight flight when I was near delirium. :-) When I got to the body, I used the Five Little Pumpkins pattern. It started out being the right the multiple, but as I did the increases, I just started incorporating those into the black between stitches. I moved the increases around a bit each time to eventually space out the pumpkins with 2-3 black as I got near the bottom. I hope that makes sense!
Then I used the ADVENTure Gnome to pattern to make a curly beard, since David S. Pumpkins has curly hair. I made it with sport weight yarn doubled on size 3 needles. I did do the incorporated nose, but then realized that it should be white because his hands were white, so I made a nose cover. It made me think of the horrible thing Rudolph’s dad makes him wear in the movie to cover his shiny nose, but I promise I made this one was out of love and the gnome doesn’t mind. I basically just made a square with white sock yarn doubled, and sewed it over the incorporated one. It actually made his nose lovely and plump, and I love it!
He’s basically one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.
ANY QUESTIONS?!
I also have one more Halloween project to share. I made this Spooky Hat for myself. I was so excited I had enough orange left from my most very favorite pair of fingerless mitts, so that the hat would match them perfectly! I also squeezed out every last bit of the Malabrigo I used for the background - I got two hats out of this skein, because last year, I made myself a Hermione’s Cable & Eyelet Hat from the same yarn!
Anyway, I finished the Halloween hat super quickly (because colorwork is addictive!), but it took me forever to attach the pom pom. Silly, I know. I did manage to get some glamour shots while we were in England this month, so I finally have some modeled shots to share.
Unfortunately, I won’t get to wear it tonight, despite it being just about the coldest Halloween of recent memory. We have family costumes as Peach (my daughter), Daisy (me), and Luigi (my husband) from Mario Bros. My costume requires a crown, which is not compatible with my lovely new hat (which is a little sad).
But I will still have fun. And I hope all of you do, too! Happy Halloween!!!